best 2d fighter ever?

[MarkRyan]

Click here to download the MvC2 video I will, from here-on-out, be discussing.

Here is my analysis of a real MvC2 match. To be honest, there were other matches I'd rather analyze because there's more going on, but this is the best one I have as far as clarity goes (they're all done shaky-cam, and a lot have bad scan lines).

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This match was recorded in a huge tournament, the Midwest Championships, in 2001. Some strategies have evolved since then, but this is still a solid representation of the game. The match is between Viscant and Team Dan, apparently. Viscant is a well-known player from San Diego, who actually got third place in the nationals last year. I don't know where Team Dan is from.

The teams chosen are Doom (B) / Storm (A) / Sentinel (Y) (Viscant), versus Ironan (B) / Storm (B) / Doom (B) (Team Dan). I'll start with the analysis of the match-up first before I delve into the actual fight.

Viscant's team, Doom/Storm/Sent, is a very well-rounded team. There's no character that is used just for their assist (such as Commando, Cammy, and in some cases, Doom). Viscant starts Doom for a couple reasons. Doom is very good at setting the pace of a match by slowing it down enough to get the opponent to get somewhat reckless. Doom's jumping Hard Punch is a great "stay-down" move, and his air Photons ("Pink Shit") are great at doing some bits of chip damage and keeping the opponent at bay. As you'll see, Doom is generally played keep-away style. And Viscant keeps Storm as second for a VERY good reason - her super, Hailstorm, hits everywhere on screen, and when used in a DHC (for example, Doom does his Photon Array super in the air, and then cancels that into Storm's Hailstorm - DHC) Hailstorm is nearly instant (there's one-frame of game action before it comes out). That means that if Viscant sees Team Dan do any sort of move that leaves him unable to block (and can be reacted to), Viscant can do Photon Array and DHC into Hailstorm for a quick and pretty damaging attack - but it costs two super levels (in MvC2, you can build up to five, but start with just one) and he'll have to drop Doom to the rear of the team (though that's not a bad thing - Doom's (B) assist type (anti-air) is a VERY good assist - causes lots of chip damage, and stays on-screen for a long time). When Storm comes out, Viscant has tons of options. Storm is considered by many as the #1 character in the game (usually along with Sentinel). Storm can play a good keep-away game, but she's not going to cause much damage doing so - generally, a keep-away Storm is played at the end of a battle to run down the clock when Storm has the lead. But Storm is also very good at rushing down. She can triangle jump (which you'll see - a super-jump, cancelled into an air-dash going down/forward, with an attack - triangle-jumping is basically a way to jump-in at your opponent, but just a lot quicker). Storm has some good air combos that end in a super to cause solid damage. She has a couple different infinites, but none of them are very practical (they require INSANE precision, where a regular air combo would do as much, if not more damage), except for her Sentinel-only infinite. Storm doesn't really have any bad match-ups. A good Sentinel can go toe-to-toe with her, and a lot of characters can fight her well because they're not particularly weak against her (Magneto, Ironman, Strider, Dhalsim, Cyclops). She's very strong against some other characters, though - Cable, Blackheart, Doom, Spiral (her main strength is being anti-Cable). Another strength of Storm's is her ability to do Typhoon cancelled into Hailstorm. The Typhoon is an unstoppable projectile - it will travel through anything and everything, unlike a fireball that might get stopped by a simple standing Hard Punch by Ironman. And then the Hailstorm, again, hits anywhere on screen. With Typhoon XX Hailstorm, you can catch your opponent off-guard and either hit them directly, or more practically, hit their assists when they call them out. Typhoon XX Hail is a big reason to NOT use your assists wildly versus Storm. And bringing up the rear of the team, Sentinel is just a general power-house. His (Y) assist, the Drones, covers some nice geometry, making it difficult for opponents to triangle-jump in. Plus, Sentinel has super-armor, which allows him to take some hits and STILL be able to pull through with the move (his super-armor is ONLY effective on the ground, though). As a third character, Sentinel has a very safe way to get tagged into the fight - Storm can Typhoon XX Hailstorm, and then DHC into Sentinel's Hyper Sentinel Force. It's a great way to pin down the opponent, and get Sentinel in safely and with an edge. Sentinel, like Storm, has a lot of options. He has great zoning capabilities with his crouching HP (the Mouth-Laser), Rocket Punches and Drones. With his zoning, he can control where the opponent can safely go, and set up for his air stomping (Sentinel's version of rush-down ). Sentinel's biggest weapon is his awesome Fly mode. Most characters that have Fly mode have a decent amount of start-up lag when they activate Fly, meaning if they fly they're taking a HUGE risk. In fact, the only other flyers that really make decent use of fly are Ironman, and ummmm, Ironman. Doom has some uses, but you rarely see a Doom go into Fly. Anyway, with Sent in Fly mode, you can sit on top of the opponent and stomp in them with flying Light and Hard Kicks. They're good at pinning down the opponent, as well as causing massive damage, since Sentinel can mix up their blocking by Flying, making them block high, de-Flying and making them block low, etc. Sentinel can NOT do this for free, however, because he can't block while flying - his best bet is to be in Unfly mode (it's a technical glitch which allows Sentinel to de-activate Fly and be able to block in the air, whereas normally he would be vulverable all the way until he lands on the ground). How you get into Unfly mode is unimportant right now, but there IS a technique to it, and there ARE techniques to keeping it (because it can be lost very easily). Sentinel's got a lot of strong match-ups, because he causes tons of damage, and has a lot of stamina. He's pretty weak versus Cable, however, though it's not an issue in this fight. That's enough for discussing that team.

Since Team Dan's team already has two of the same characters as Viscant's, I won't discuss them much here. Team Dan starts Ironman for a couple reasons. One, Ironman can build an insane amount of super levels, especially if he gets the opponent into his infinite (which is quite easy). Ironman's infinite is probably the best in the game - I can't think of any better, except maybe Anakaris', but no one uses Anakaris (because he sucks). Ironman's infinite re-dizzies at about 50 hits (which means, after 50 hits of the "infinite" the opponent will fly into the air, and the combo will be broken - the infinite alone cannot kill a character entirely). Ironman also has some solid zoning weapons, such as the Smart Bombs, which drop slowly, so they stay on-screen a pretty long time, AND they make a nice sweep across the screen if you do them from super-jump height. Ironman's jumping Hard Punch is also very good at keeping the opponent from rushing him down too hard - it's very high-priority, it's aim-able (you can go up, down, or sideways with it), and it has a good reach. Ironman has a bunch of different ways to set-up into his infinite, which is generally an Ironman player's primary objective, along with the zoning to keep Ironman safe. He has a lot of mobility via air dashes, and his solid Fly mode. Like Viscant, Team Dan puts Storm second, pretty much for the same reasons. He leaves Doom last, and in this case, Doom is pretty much there for his assist. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about Ironman teams in general, but I'm sure there are some infinite set ups with Doom's assist.

Okay, now onto the fight.

The video starts off about one-second into the fight. You miss the exact beginning, but Viscant starts by calling Sentinel assist and super-jumping with HP. Versus Ironman, this is completely safe - Sentinel takes care of the ground so Ironman can't dash in, and Doom covers the air. When Doom gets to his max height, he tosses out some Pink Shit Photons. Team Dan super-jumps immediately, as well, calling Doom assist, but misses his air dash and gets a superjumping HP instead (air dashes are done by hitting both punches at the same time - he just slipped). Since he couldn't air-dash above Doom, he has to block Doom's sj.HP, and Ironman's assist (Doom) gets hit by both Viscant's Sentinel assist AND his Pink Shit. when Viscant's Doom lands, he does a jumping HP while calling Storm's projectile assist (the invincible Typhoon). The j.HP spreads across the whole screen and is a good way to just sit your opponent back down if they were trying to jump or air dash at you. Team Dan no doubt expects this (it's common Doom-play), and he jumps over Viscant's j.HP, and immediately afterwards super-jumps to get some leverage. He air-dashes over to attempt a cross-up, but Viscant super-jumps himself, keeping Storm safe, and getting the upper-hand on Team Dan. Viscant throws some more Pink Shit, and as he falls back down, Team Dan goes for an air combo - he does a super-jump Weak Punch, but it's blocked (had it landed, he could've either done a nice air combo, or possibly gone for the infinite). Upon landing from the super jump, team Dan tries to land a combo, but Sentinel assist is there to protect Viscant's Doom.

...I just realized I'm only seven seconds into the fight. I'll be less explicit for now...

Okay, seven seconds into the fight. Between seconds 7 and 16, you see Team Dan do some zoning with the Smart Bombs - he super jumps and drops them on Viscant. At about 22 seconds, Team Dan makes Viscant block a j.HP, which Viscant push-blocks, presumably by accident (my guess is he was trying to air dash, but air dash and push-block are both done by hitting both punches). This leaves Doom suspended in the air, and open for an infinite - Team Dan goes for the infinite, but Viscant push-blocks another of his hits (this time on purpose), and as Team Dan makes his second attempt to nail Doom, Viscant quickly whips out Super Photon Array, and it nails Ironman and does a hefty chunk of damage. We're at about 25 seconds into the match. At about 29 seconds into the match, Team Dan pulls a nice corner sequence which does a good amount of chip damage to Viscant, then cancels into Ironman's Proton Cannon. But since Proton Cannon is NOT a safe move if the opponent blocks, he immediately DHCs into Storm's Hailstorm - a nice sequence, took two super meter levels, and did good chip damage. Unforunately, Viscant tried calling in Sentinel for some reason near the end of Ironman's attack - I'm guessing this was an accident, and because of it, Sentinel eats the Hailstorm. Immediately Storm goes into anti-Doom mode. Since Doom can't reach the same heights as Storm can, she can always super-jump and out-chip damage Doom, forcing Doom to play another game. We're at 37 seconds. Expecting more random sj.HPs from Team Dan (as you'll see, random sj.HPs are a common method to build meter with Storm), Viscant does Super Photon Array and cancels into Storm's Hailstorm - had he predicted right, Team Dan's Storm would've eaten tons of damage, but Team Dan was wisely cautious, and gets away with just chip damage. This brings the match to Storm versus Storm - 42 seconds. You see them going back-and-forth a few times, taking turns with their assists and trying to land j.HPs. Team Dan takes the initiative and stops the stand-off with a Typhoon XX Hailstorm, which catches Viscant's Doom assist. There's a lot of mirrored stuff here (which is common in ALL mirror-matches) - both Storm's doing what chip damage they can, and keeping their own assists safe by staying on top of the other guy when they're own assist is in jeopardy. Finally, Viscant jumps up and pulls out a random Lightning Attack, which connects, and then cancels into Storm's Lightning Storm super - we're at 1:17. At 1:20, Team Dan misses the Typhoon XX Hailstorm, and Viscant just jumps over the Typhoon, lands, and combos Team Dan's Storm. After that, Viscant floats over Team Dan to get him to call an assist (as a means of keeping Storm from landing with a combo attempt), but he's baited - Viscant does a whiffed Lightning Storm, and DHCs into Sentinel's Hyper Sentinel Force - it all hits Team Dan's Doom assist, and hurts him pretty badly. We're at 1:29. Viscant flies with Sentinel and tries to stomp Storm to death, but before he can, Team Dan wisely calls in Ironman (and you can see how smart his timing was - he waited for Sentinel to be in the air so that he couldn't easily combo Ironman during his silly taunt). Ironman has some solid opportunities to land the infinite versus Sentinel, so it's a good move. At about 1:39, you can see Team Dan doing some nice zoning against Sentinel with the sj.HPs, and when one of them connects (1:40), he immediately goes for the infinite - but he's too high, and has to settle for an air throw. Between 1:40 and 2:10 there's just a lot of zoning each other going on, and Sentinel finally gains the upper-hand by landing a Frying Pan (j.HP), and then a c.HP (Mouth-Laser). Upon Ironman dying, Viscant goes immediately for the guard break - with Sentinel, if he can get Team Dan to block his j.HP Frying Pan on his way down, Doom won't be able to block until he lands. Viscant manages to get that down, and cancels into Fly to continue the guard break, but the spacing is damned-difficult unless he's got the opponent cornered - that means guard break failed, and we're at 2:12. Team Dan super jumps and expects Viscant to follow him up via Sentinel's Fly, so he quickly does Super Pink Shit, and DHCs to Storm's Hailstorm - remember, that's nearly instant, and Sentinel cannot block while he's flying. Sentinel eats tons of damage at 2:16. Between 2:16 and 2:24, Team Dan is just desperately trying to kill of Sentinel via chip damage - he super jumps up high while calling Doom, and throws out vertical Typhoons. Viscant misses a couple of opportunities to escape, and eventually falls victim to the chip damage. Sentinel dies. As Viscant's Doom drops in after Sentinel's death, Team Dan tries to cross Viscant up by dashing under him and trying to hit him with a standing HK - Storm's launcher. But Viscant's a seasoned player, and when Doom comes out he IMMEDIATELY goes into his Dive Kick, which takes him over Storm's s.HK, and then cancels into Super Pink Shit - at this point you can see Team Dan's Storm start to cry, and Viscant DHCs out to his own Storm via Hailstorm. At 2:31, Team Dan's Storm is dead. All he has left is Doom. At this point, Team Dan is pretty much doomed (seriously, no pun-intended). They beat around the bush a bit, and at 2:52 Team Dan pulls out with some Super Pink Shit to try and cause some chip damage to Viscant. But Viscant dashes under him, super-jumps up, and nails him with a super - peaced.

[FuryFox]

Actually, I think I mentioned somewhere about the guard-breaking in MvC2 being a glitch, and though I didn't use the term, it's somewhat implied that the use of it is "cheap". -and the guard breaks that people use around here *are* unavoidable. Especially easy to execute is the "guard-break the incoming characters when the previous one dies"...maybe you all know something I don't, but I don't know how you avoid this unless the other guy messes up. In the case of Cable's j.FP into AHVB, even letting yourself get hit guarantees the combo (and the fact that letting yourself get hit is considered a solution is just ludicrous).

Also, maybe there's some terminology confusion here, but I've never heard of guard breaks being in "every Capcom fighter", let alone "all fightes". Some games, like Alpha 3 have it built in as a feature, not a glitch, but I don't recall any guard breaks in SF3 or SF2, unless you're talking about overheads or throws...even though it's quite obvious you're not.

Of course, I wasn't so obsessive about those games back then, so maybe I just missed it. What guard breaks are you guys referring to?

[MechDeus]

Originally posted by MarkRyan
Oh, so you want Mortal Kombat II. Go play Mortal Kombat II where all the characters have basically the same moves. You don't want anyone to have an advantage. You'd like them all to be the same. Sounds like fun .

I said equal usefulness, not same style and exectution. But if your defination of "deep" includes "hugely unbalanced", which you pretty much said (as much as me stating what you suggested), then so be it.

Don't tell me I'm wrong, you numbwit. Re-dizzies mean that all "infinites" can never be true infinites because the opponent will FLY into the air (RE-DIZZY, get it?) after about 50 hits of any infinite. Did you read that? Fifty hits of an infinite = about 60% damage max. Now STFU.

Then explain why the 100%s do 100%. Btw, this also includes moves which don't create re-dizzies, such as an alternating attack repeated back and forth so as to create an infinite, where the opponent never leaves the ground.

You consider it stupid?

I consider block-damage kills stupid in their exectution. They're there, so take advantage of them, I'm not saying stop, I'm refering to Capcom to stop. One of the reasons I brought it up is because of the huge amounts of block damage that can be dealt out in 2D fighting games (SFIII can also deal quite a bit with some Supers, though MvC2 again doles out way more).

That was Capcom's remedy since they KNEW there was no way to tame an engine so robust and flexible.

I believe the term you're looking for is "glitchy". But then, I guess it's that well-tuned nature of it that helped "tame" Cammy getting stuck in the ceiling and Gambit locking onto Servbots for three minutes.

Yeah, real stable.

[MarkRyan]

Originally posted by Apokryphos
In the case of Cable's j.FP into AHVB, even letting yourself get hit guarantees the combo (and the fact that letting yourself get hit is considered a solution is just ludicrous).

Also, maybe there's some terminology confusion here, but I've never heard of guard breaks being in "every Capcom fighter", let alone "all fightes". Some games, like Alpha 3 have it built in as a feature, not a glitch, but I don't recall any guard breaks in SF3 or SF2, unless you're talking about overheads or throws...even though it's quite obvious you're not.

There are a number of ways to avoid the guard break by Cable you just cited. Taking the hit IS an option - if they don't expect you to take the hit, then they miss with the Hyper Viper Beam. If they expect it, then you get comboed - it's a risk and chance either way. If you think that taking the hit is ridiculous it's only because you're not used to even being confronted with the situation.

Actually, the guard break versus Cable is a lot more complicated than I just described. There's another option - push block the j.HP butllet Cable shoots - you'll freeze in the air. From there, it depends on your character. You could air dash, fly, teleport, do some move that re-positions you. A lot of the time you WON'T be able to avoid the AHVB entirely, but you sure as Hell can do something about letting him connect three of them on you. Of course, you could avoid the situation almost entirely by doing a safe DHC out to your next character - it'll cost two super levels, but at least you're safe. So many options.

As far as it being in every Capcom game, the logic is this. The way a guard break works in MvC2 is that during a normal jump, you are limited to performing ONE action - block, normal attack, super attack. Of course with all the cancelling you can do, you can stretch your ONE action to include a couple (i.e. you can block the j.HP from Cable, and still be able to cancel with Fly). However, you can NOT cancel anything into a block... Which means that if you block once during your normal jump, you cannot block for the remainder of that jump, until you land. MvC2 sets up some pretty convinient situations where you can really take advantage of this game engine nuance. The properties apply to all Street Fighters that have air blocking.

[MarkRyan]

Originally posted by MechDeus
Then explain why the 100%s do 100%. Btw, this also includes moves which don't create re-dizzies, such as an alternating attack repeated back and forth so as to create an infinite, where the opponent never leaves the ground.

You did just read what I wrote, didn't you? There are NO 100% infinites in the game, save perhaps Anakaris', though it's hardly even a true infinite.

Read this.

When a character gets hit a bunch consecutively, as in an infinite, no matter where they are on the screen, after a while they will RE-DIZZY. How many times would you like me to type that? RE-DIZZY. They FLY INTO THE AIR SO THAT THE COMBO ENDS. YOU CANNOT AVOID IT, YOU CANNOT GET RID OF IT.

[FuryFox]

Oh wow, that all got posted while I was doing stuff and typing, so I was sorta oblivous to it when I posted. But yeah, I still want to know about all these alleged guard breaks.

Also, that was a very nice break down of the match. I read something very similar from the actual players at SRK about a tournament CvS2 match a while back, which was cool because they told what they were thinking at certain moments. Although you did a nice job, chances are there as alot going on mentally that an observer wouldn't ever know.

Oh wait a minute, I'm talking about MvC2 here
Okay, just kidding, but compared to something like SF3 or Tekken (which I know I shouldn't even bring up), MvC2 doesn't rely much on subtley. Everything is pretty much right there on the screen, it's usually just a matter of how difficult it is to counter, or in many cases, actually perform. I don't have the time to discuss this endlessly, since it's clear that MarkRyan will always think MvC2 is the greatest, and I never will, but I just don't see the actual depth of gameplay being as satisfying as the more refined fighters.

I mentioned this earlier, but no one seemed to notice, but there is a definite difference between something having depth, and something being complicated. Your match breakdown was an excellent way of detailing how *complicated* MvC2 is. Oh, I know the game has depth, but it's mired beneath an unrefined engine and a plethora of technical anomalies that only players with an unhealthy love for the game will have access to.

Also, a long match analysis doesn't really prove anything. I could write an essay on the delicate interplay of offense and defense in a tournament level bomberman match. Or rather, an SF3 match, or even a light-weight game like MK2. The fact is, when people are *in* to something enough, strategies will continue to develope and new things will be discovered. Most games simply lack the followers to explore them so devoutly, but this is why even the crappiest games can be fun with human competition.

And, if you think it fitting to use that video match a reference material, it is in my personal opinion that much of what happened in that match was simply not much fun, in regards to a fighting game. I don't want to break it down point by point, but I think the abundance of super jumping is pretty symptomatic of the loose "fighting" generally found in MvC2. How super jumping is a cop-out solution by Capcom isn't really the issue (even though it ires me), so I won't extrapolate, but ultimately, all that super jumping is just not fun. But it's necessary.

Oh, and those low-res sprites just look nasty over the 3D backgrounds. So MvC2 *can't* be the greatest

edit: Damn it, it just happened again. Anyway, that's exactly how I thought guard breaks work, and it hardly applies to all capcom fighters. It's fine that solutions sorta exist, but the fact that strategies are based around a glitch is just something we shouldn't have to put up with in the first place. Granted, only people with an encyclopedic knowledge of MvC2 will be executing guard breaks and escapes *on purpose*, but they happen often enough during during casual to advanced play to make the game sloppy.

[MarkRyan]

Originally posted by Apokryphos
I mentioned this earlier, but no one seemed to notice, but there is a definite difference between something having depth, and something being complicated. Your match breakdown was an excellent way of detailing how *complicated* MvC2 is. Oh, I know the game has depth, but it's mired beneath an unrefined engine and a plethora of technical anomalies that only players with an unhealthy love for the game will have access to.

Seriously, what is this definite difference between deep gameplay and complicated gameplay? I mean, if only those players with an "unhealthy love for the game" have access to certain aspects of the gameplay in Marvel vs. Capcom 2, then how can you question the depth? I really don't get it.

[Will]

Mark's breath smells like cat food.

[MarkRyan]

Originally posted by Will
Mark's breath smells like cat food.

Hah hah, what's that mean?

[BooMsta]

I can't believe this has turned into YET ANOTHER MVC2 debate...just play what you like personally, now that I got a DC stick I'm absolutly loving SF3:TS not to mention I'm getting back into all my old fighters that I haven't touched for a while. But to answer the question SF3:TS